J. Buss: Dad could have kept Howard

It's hard to say now if the Los Angeles Lakers could have done anything different in their campaign to retain free agent center Dwight Howard that would've changed his mind about going to Houston.

The "Stay D12" billboards around town didn't work. Neither did anything anyone said in the Lakers pitch meeting to Howard in early July. Howard's mind seemed mostly made up by then.

But Lakers executive vice president Jeanie Buss thinks one person might've been able to change Howard's decision -- her father, the late Dr. Jerry Buss.

"They would've probably had a better relationship if my dad hadn't been sick," Jeanie Buss said in a wide-ranging interview with hosts Mark Willard and Mychal Thompson on ESPNLA 710 Thursday morning. "When it came time to try to convince Dwight to stay, we lost the best closer in the business in Dr. Buss.

"Putting up billboards maybe wasn't the right thing. But we maybe have to learn to do things differently because Dr. Buss isn't here anymore. People said [of the billboards], 'Oh, that's not the Laker way.' Well, the Laker way isn't the same, because Dr. Buss isn't here."

Buss said that she developed her own relationship with Howard during his season with the team and was very disappointed he chose to leave the organization.

"I got a chance to get to know him, probably more than I would get to know a player," Buss said. "I really don't think he got the credit or support ... I was really shocked that right from the start of training camp he was going full speed or 100 percent. I really admired that, because he did that in good faith, because he didn't have a contract."

Buss said she didn't feel the need to attend the Lakers final pitch meeting to Howard because "Dwight knew how I felt. I made it clear to Dwight that I wanted to help him become the player he was meant to be, a championship player."

Instead, her brother Jim Buss, the Lakers executive vice president of player personnel, represented ownership at the meeting.

"I think it was redundant," Buss said, explaining her decision not to attend. "My brother was there to represent ownership so I don't really think there was any reason for me to be there."

As for her relationship with her brother, Buss said: "I have a great relationship with all my brothers. I've got three other ones. There's four boys and two girls. It's a family business.

"The way my dad set things up was for me to oversee the business side and for my brother to oversee the basketball side. I know my dad felt that was a good system, and that's the system we're trying to make work."

ESPNLosAngeles.com